A silver halide photographic light-sensitive material, hereinafter simply referred to a light-sensitive material, is usually composed of a support and a hydrophilic binder, silver halide grains and various kinds of additive provided on the support. In the light-sensitive material, a plurality of layers are usually coated on the support. Consequently, the sum of the thickness of the layers comprised of the hydrophilic binder tends to increased when the layer constitution of the light-sensitive material is complicated. In such the case, degradation in the image sharpness, developing ability, desilverizing ability and physical properties of the light-sensitive material tends to be occurred. Such the tendency is considerably shown in a multi-layer color light-sensitive material which has many constituting layers. Accordingly, it is an important matter on the design of the color light-sensitive material to reduce the amount binder or gelatin in the layers.
However, the reduction of gelatin amount causes a problem relating to the viscosity and the setting temperature necessary to realize a stable coating of the coating liquid. For example, an evenness of the coated layer is formed at the time of coating the liquid since the viscosity of the coating solution is excessively lowered than the viscosity required for the stable coating, and that an unevenness of drying tends to be formed since the setting temperature is excessively lowered and setting ability of the coating liquid after coating and before drying the coated layer is degraded, by lowering the gelatin concentration when the amount of gelatin is reduced.
On the other hand, it is known as described in JP O.P.I. No. 95-148052 that the reduction of the binder raises a problem of sweating since the ratio of an oil-soluble component in the coated layer. The sweating is a phenomenon of forming oil droplets on the surface of the light-sensitive material when the light-sensitive material is stored under a high temperature and high humidity condition before or after processing. The oil droplet contains oil-soluble components of the light-sensitive material such as a high-boiling solvent, a coupler and a dye formed by the coupling reaction of a coupler with the oxidation product of a color developing agent. The oil-soluble components are oozed out on the surface of the light-sensitive material during the storage and gathered to form the droplets which are seen just like that the light-sensitive material sweats. The sweating causes considerable degradation of the surface glossiness, and the stability of color formation and formed dye of the light-sensitive material.
The sweating of the light-sensitive material after processing causes spreading of the dye formed in the light-sensitive material and degradation of the sharpness of image is resulted. JP O.P.I. No. 59-149347 describes a method for prevent the sweating phenomenon and the degradation of image sharpness caused by the spread of the dye by the use of a specific hardener. Such the hardener is hardly used in the industrial production process since the hardener vigorously reacts with gelatin of a coating solution in the period from the addition of the hardener into the coating solution to the coating of the solution, and an uniform coated layer cannot be formed. A method for similar purpose using an amidohydroquinone compound is described in JP O.P.I. Nos. 63-286848 and 63-287850. Such the substance is difficult to practically use since the compound gives many bad influence such as degradation in the photographic sensitivity, color forming efficiency and the fastness of the formed dye when an effective amount of the compound is added to the light-sensitive material together with the coupler. In the above-mentioned methods for preventing the sweating phenomenon, the spreading of the image is improved accompanied with the prevention of the sweating. However, the inventors have been found in some cases that the image sharpness is considerably lowered even when no sweating is occurred. It is understood that the sweating and the image spreading cannot be considered as the problem caused by the same reason.
Various countermeasures have been applied against such the problems. In concrete, a variety of thickener such as starch, dextran, dextran sulfate, carboxymethyl cellulose, cellulose sulfate, polyacrylamide, algic acid, sodium polyacrylate, polyvinylpyrrolidone, and a copolymer of styrene/maleic acid. Such the usual thickeners show some degree of effect to improve the unevenness of the coated layer by the viscosity increasing effect thereof. However, the thickeners cause a problem such that the physical properties of the layer after coating and drying is considerably degraded since the viscosity increasing effect of the thickener is reduced in the presence of a large amount of poly-valent metal ion or the addition of a large amount of the thickener is necessary to obtain a satisfactory viscosity increasing effect. The usually used thickeners have a little effect to raise the setting temperature of the liquid, and the setting temperature of the liquid is lowered by the addition of the thickener in some cases. Consequently, the thickener has little effect on the improvement of the drying unevenness of the layer, and raise a problem that the thickener results lowering in the final quality of the light-sensitive material. Furthermore, it has been found that addition of the thickener accelerates the sweating phenomenon on the light-sensitive material.
Japanese Patent Publication Open to Public Inspection (JP O.P.I.) No. 1-221736 discloses the use of glucose, maltose, sucrose, or a polysaccharide produced at out of the cell by a microbe fermentation of xylose together with a cation, and JP O.P.I. No. 6-67330 discloses the use of a natural high molecular polysaccharide derived from a red algac together with a cation. However, the polysaccharide have such drawbacks that the polysaccharide requires a high temperature to be dissolved, and causes degradation in the physical properties of the layer in water such as the easily formation of scratches in a wetted state and the degradation in the adhesiveness of the layer. The use of polysaccharide hardly inhibits the sweating of the light-sensitive material. The liquid in which the polysaccharide is used has a property that the viscosity and the setting temperature are affected by the presence of a usual cation such as Li.sup.+, Na.sup.+, K.sup.+, or Ca.sup.2+. Such the property of the polysacchride is undesirables since the viscosity and the setting temperature is largely influenced by an additive usually used at the preparation of the coating liquid such as an anionic surfactant and a water-soluble dye, since the property becomes a limitation on the design of the light-sensitive material.